Synthesis of 1,5-diazocin-2-ones

Russian Chemical Bulletin - This review is focused on the synthetic approaches to the eight-membered nitrogen heterocycles, 1,5-diazocin-2-ones, exhibiting promising biological activities....     

大脑血液动力学现象中的能量编码

神经信息的编码与解码是神经科学中的核心研究内容,同时又极具挑战性.传统的编码理论都具有各自的局限性,很难从脑的全局运行方式上给出有效的理论.而由于能量是一个标量具有可叠加性,因此能量编码理论可以从神经元活动的能量特征出发来研究脑功能的全局神经编码问题,取得了一系列的研究成果.本研究以王-张神经元能量计算模型为基础,构建了一个多层次结构的神经网络,通过计算机数值模拟得到了神经网络的能量消耗和血液中葡萄糖供能的变化情况.计算结果显示,和网络的神经活动达到峰值的时间相比,血液中葡萄糖的供能达到峰值的时间延迟了约5.6s.从定量的角度再现了功能性核磁共振(fMRI)中的血液动力学现象:大脑某个脑区的神经元集群被激活以后经过5~7 s的延迟,脑血流的变化才会大幅增加.模拟结果表明先前发表的由王-张神经元模型所揭示的负能量机制在控制大脑的血液动力学现象中起着核心的作用,预测了刺激条件下大脑的能量代谢与血流之间变化的本质是由神经元在发放动作电位过程中正、负能量之间的非平衡、不匹配性质所决定的.本文的研究结果为今后进一步探究血液动力学现象的生理学机制提供了新的研究方向,在神经网络的建模与计算方面给出了一个新的视角和研究方法.      

Nutritional Value and Preventive Role of Nigella sativa L. and Its Main Component Thymoquinone in Cancer: An Evidenced-Based Review of Preclinical and Clinical Studies

In recent times, scientific attention has been paid to different foods and their bioactive components for the ability to inhibit the onset and progress of different types of cancer. Nigella sativa extract, powder and seed oil and its main components, thymoquinone and α-hederin, have showed potent anticancer and chemosensitizing effects against various types of cancer, such as liver, colon, breast, renal, cervical, lung, ovarian, pancreatic, prostate and skin tumors, through the modulation of various molecular signaling pathways. Herein, the purpose of this review was to highlight the anticancer activity of Nigella sativa and it constitutes, focusing on different in vitro, in vivo and clinical studies and projects, in order to underline their antiproliferative, proapoptotic, cytotoxic and antimetastatic effects. Particular attention has been also given to the synergistic effect of Nigella sativa and it constitutes with chemotherapeutic drugs, and to the synthesized analogs of thymoquinone that seem to enhance the chemo-sensitizing potential. This review could be a useful step towards new research on N. sativa and cancer, to include this plant in the dietary treatments in support to conventional therapies, for the best achievement of therapeutic goals.     

A Cosserat shell model for interphases in elastic media

This study is concerned with the modeling of interphases in elastic media in general, and in composite materials in particular. The aim is to replace a boundary value problem consisting of a three-phase configuration, say that of fiber-interphase-matrix, by a simpler problem which involves the fiber and matrix only, plus certain matching conditions which simulate the interphase. The simplest of such known representations replaces a thin interphase by a “perfect contact interface” (a single surface) across which the displacements and tractions are assumed to be continuous. Another classical model replaces a thin and soft interphase by a “spring-type interface”, across which the tractions are continuous, but the displacement field undergoes a discontinuity. In the present paper, a Cosserat shell model of the interphase is derived which successfully models the original interphase in a unified manner, for the full range of its material parameters relative to those of the neighboring media. The model is derived in the setting of three-dimensional linear elasticity with small deformations and displacements. Comparisons with an existing exact solution of a coated fiber in an infinite matrix show that it performs extremely well even for moderately thick interphases.     

Simulation of immiscible multiphase flow in porous media: A focus on the capillary fringe of oil-contaminated aquifers

This paper deals with the analysis of some aspects of the vertical and lateral migration of oil spills in the unsaturated and the capillary zone of a phreatic aquifer. Our motivation stems from the fact that such contamination represents a severe danger for ground-water resources all over the world and from the present acute problem of jet-fuel contamination in some location of Israel. In the present study, we shall focus our efforts on the analysis of the upper layers of the aquifer which are often subjected to the most significant oil contamination. Neglecting coupled processes effects such as dilution, adsorption and volatilization, also adopting Richard's assumption, a three-phase flow model is introduced with capillary heads of the water and the oil as variables. The resulting model which is coupled and strongly non-linear is solved using a vertical two-dimensional Finite-Element procedure together with a quasi-Newton optimization algorithm. Applying that scheme, various scenarios of oil migration in the unsaturated and the capillary zone were simulated. Some migration characteristics prediced by the numerical simulations are discussed. In particular, the dynamics of the water and oil phases during the migration process is discussed.     

Restrictions on nonlinear constitutive equations for elastic shells

Constitutive equations for the resultant forces and moments applied to a shell-like body necessarily couple the influences of the shell geometry and the constitutive nature of the three-dimensional material from which the shell is constructed. Consequently, even when the nonlinear constitutive equation of the three-dimensional material is known, the complicated influence of the shell geometry on the constitutive response of the shell is not known. The main objective of this paper is to develop restrictions on the constitutive equations of nonlinear elastic shells which ensure that exact solutions of the shell equations are consistent with exact nonlinear solutions of the three-dimensional equations for homogeneous deformations. Since these restrictions are nonlinear in nature they provide valuable general theoretical guidance for specific constitutive assumptions about the coupling of material and geometric properties of shells. Examples of the linear theories of a plate and a spherical shell are considered.     

An improved neuronal energy model that better captures of dynamic property of neuronal activity

Among the theories of neural information coding, the neural energy coding is more accessible to global coding features than traditional neural encoding. According to the shortcomings existing in the neuronal energy model, that is, the non-smooth nature of the energy curve, we proposed an improved neuronal energy model in this paper. The modified energy model is a good choice for establishment of the global model of brain function. And it is also the basis of energy calculation for functional cognitive neural networks in the future.     

Spin waves in ultracold gases with exchange and spin-orbit interactions

The dynamics of spin waves in ultracold gases is investigated with allowance for exchange and spin-orbit interaction. The exact basis of atomic states is used taking into account all rotational quantum numbers of the atom. The dispersion relation for spin waves is obtained for fermions and bosons in the hydro-dynamic approximation.